Monday, October 7, 2013

Who Said Friday 13th is Unlucky!

"I need a break I told myself" (the only person that will listen!)....so after a few quick checks with the boss, the guides and chef, I was off to Aurukun for the weekend. It was Friday 13th.....was I scared?
No way, a little apprehensive.......well, maybe!

Phew; the flight was smooth and without a hitch. Thanks Skytrans.
Our chef Mark picked me up right on time and I was soon zooming across Archer Bay to the mother ship, the Pikkuw. My home for the next three days..............fast forward!

OK, OK, OK......so you want me to stay up here for a couple of extra days and attend a very important ceremony on behalf of Wik Projects. I'll do it!
Oh, and we also need someone to guide our next group of clients........Hmmmmm! A quick weekend trip had suddenly turned into almost a fortnight. Two weeks of fishing, guiding, sight seeing etc. Yes, I can do that.

It was not all fishing however, as being a break between charters, there was heaps to do. Servicing outboard motors, washing & cleaning, scraping the hulls of our new sportfishing dories and general maintenance. There is always plenty to do around a charter boat, but we still managed some time to play.
 
 

Terry (head guide), Mark (chef) and I, managed a couple of hours each day to go test a few likely spots for old bucket mouth. We were not disappointed and once I realised that I was to guide the following week, I was quickly into "learning" mode. Not that I needed a total intro to the place, I usually guide for several weeks a season and am fairly familiar. But different times of the year, varying tides and prevailing conditions do play a major part of any angling success. A bit of recognisance work does not go astray.


In the limited time available prior to clients arriving, we did however manage to check out the upper reaches of the main Archer, the shale bars near the mouth and the rocky headlands along the coast. We caught some lovely fish and there are a few pics hereabouts to testify to that. One memorable session was had casting to the rocky foreshore north of the river mouth. In this location the bauxite deposit has left rocky reef stretching right from the shore line. At low tide, barra (and other species) find this structure a magnet..........if there is no swell running you can get right amongst it so to speak. Casting shallow running lures like the ever reliable gold bomber to pockets in the rock structure can produce amazing fish action at certain times of the year.



This is also cod city! Literally dozens of small estuary and gold spot cod inhabit this terrain and this day it was hard to get the lures past them in order to find a barra. At one juncture, Terry had hooked up to a rat cod, only to have this engulfed by an even bigger one. After a hard struggle, Terry managed to pull the beautiful cod from his rocky home, take a quick pick and release it back to the briny.



Most locations produced fish.......the size of the barra however was a little down on previous trips. One explanation given is the fact that the past wet season was almost non existent right across the top end of Australia. All those big barra caught upstream above rock bars / rapids and in land locked lagoons did not have a change to "get out".......just wait till next year maybe!


 
 

This has however not stopped the more than occasional big barra and still many over the magic metre mark being caught each week. (Check our Facebook page for regular updates)

That's it for now......I'll let the images hereabouts tell the rest of the story!

NOTE - several weeks ago TV presenter Rob Paxevanos from Fishing Australia brought his film crew to Aurukun. We had an absolute blast and the fishing was awesome. The first of three episodes is to air this weekend on WIN TV Saturday 12th October from 5:30 pm
Check it out!

Regards, Les